Highlights

Compass Lexecon's Annual Client Newsletter
July 27, 2017

We have had the great fortune to announce in nearly every newsletter that our past year was the best in our firm's history. Last year was no different: it was by far our best year ever. From mergers to antitrust litigation, financial market issues to securities litigation, and from intellectual property matters to regulatory proceedings, we continued to be retained on the biggest and most important matters involving complex economic issues and we continued to attract the best experts and staff.

Compass Lexecon remains the leading competition economics firm worldwide. We worked (or are working) on the most important mergers, such as the Deutsche Börse-London Stock Exchange merger; the Marriott-Starwood merger; the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger; the proposed Agrium-PotashCorp merger, as well as dozens of other deals. In antitrust litigation, we worked (or are working) on a wide variety of major pricefixing and class action matters. In addition, in early 2017, Compass Lexecon was named the Competition Economics Firm of the Year by Who's Who Legal, an award Compass Lexecon has won every year it has been presented. Who's Who Legal identified 38 Compass Lexecon experts from five different countries in its Who's Who of Competition Economists, including naming Janusz Ordover as Competition Economist of the Year. The same publication identified future leaders of the competition economics space, naming 11 Compass Lexecon experts from four countries. Two of our experts – Miguel de la Mano and Jonathan Orszag – were named among the most highly regarded future leaders. Finally, the Global Competition Review identified three of Compass Lexecon's economists among the top ten leading women in antitrust.

Our finance, general litigation, and regulatory practices enjoyed similar successes. To name just a few examples, we worked for Amazon, which prevailed in a billion dollar transfer pricing dispute with the IRS; for various bank trustees in defending the $4.5 billion JP Morgan RMBS settlement; for Bechtel and Jacobs Engineering in successfully defeating an $8 billion damage claim; and for Fidelity National Financial in a Delaware stockholder appraisal action involving a $4 billion acquisition. We have also been heavily involved in regulatory proceedings and litigation in the Volkswagen automobile emission and General Motors faulty ignition controversies. In addition, we have continued to expand our presence and involvement in intellectual property litigation and continued our leading role as experts in the largest securities fraud, insider trading and manipulation/spoofing cases as well as in appraisal, valuation and corporate governance matters in Delaware and elsewhere.

In the international arbitration arena, our clients won significant victories in a range of cases including investments in an airport arbitration dispute in Bolivia; in an arbitration regarding the early termination of a natural gas supply contract in Argentina; and in an expropriation case against Venezuela. In a survey of general counsel and private practice lawyers globally, 20 experts from Compass Lexecon – from three continents – were listed among the top expert witnesses in the world. In addition, Compass Lexecon's Manuel Abdala and Pablo Spiller were named as two of the most highly regarded international arbitration experts.

We also continued to add to our roster of world-renowned experts. We added Dr. Adel Turki, formerly head of Cornerstone Research's domestic and international finance practice and one of the most respected economic consultants in the world; Matthias Pflanz, one of the leading competition economists in Europe; Chris Garmon, a former staff economist at the Federal Trade Commission; and John Davies, the former head of the competition division at the OECD and former chief economist at the UK Competition Commission.